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About the maker

Tegarayama Masashige正繁

Tegarayama Masashige was a Harima swordsmith of the late eighteenth century who carried the billowing toran-midare of Osaka into the shinshinto revival, his dated work running from the Kansei years across blades signed at Surugadai in Edo. He belonged to the Tegarayama line of Himeji, a house descended from the first-generation Yamato no Daijo Fujiwara Ujishige that took its name from living at the foot of Mount Tegara. The published sources record that he was the younger brother of the third-generation Ujishige, that he first signed Ujishige and succeeded as the fourth of that name, and that he later changed his name to Masashige; his common name was Asashichi and his art name Tankasai. In the winter of Tenmei 8 (1788) he entered the service of Matsudaira Sadanobu, the lord Rakuo of Shirakawa in Oshu, as a retained smith, and moved to Edo, where he worked at Surugadai in Kanda. This patronage explains the tang inscription Oshu Shirakawa-shin that recurs across his blades, naming his lord's northern domain rather than his Harima birthplace. In Kyowa 3 (1803) he received the court title Kai no Kami, and from his lord the two characters Shinmyo, which he is said to have reserved for the works he counted his best. His hand is the toran-midare he learned by private admiration of Tsuda Echizen no Kami Sukehiro, and the published record names it without qualification as his chief specialty. Over a wide mihaba with shallow sori and an extended chu-kissaki, he opens the temper at the base with a straight suguha yakidashi, then raises a large gunome that crests into the surging wave of toran. The published sources describe the result as a manner in which he 「津田助広の作風に私淑して」 (privately admired the style of Tsuda Sukehiro) and 「濤瀾乱を最も得意としており」 (was most accomplished in toran-midare). What distinguishes his toran from a plain copy of the Osaka model is a controlled order to the pattern; of his finest work the NBTHK writes that the irregularity, with large gunome as its principal theme, 「大互の目を主調とした乱れの形はくずれることなく整然と」 (remains orderly and does not collapse), the ko-nie adhering evenly and thickly while ji and ha alike work brightly. Into that large-gunome edge run pointed togari elements, and the published sources treat them not as accident but as a recognized mark of the smith, noting of one katana that 「尖りごころの刃が交じっているが、これは同工の特色である」 (pointed togari elements are mixed in, and these are a characteristic of this smith). In places arrow-nock yahazu-like teeth enter the temper as well; on one wakizashi where 「矢筈風の刃が交り」 (yahazu-like teeth are mingled in) the published sources read the touch as 「言之進照包を意識したもの」 (a glance toward Gonnoshin Terukane), widening his toran beyond the single Sukehiro source. The boshi runs straight into a ko-maru, at times with hakikake and a long kaeri, and tobiyaki, yubashiri and muneyaki gather at the edge of his most active blades, which the NBTHK likens to 「打ち寄せる波濤」 (waves breaking on the shore). The jigane is a densely forged ko-itame thick with ji-nie, in places settling into a quiet, nearly muji surface, and at its finest carrying fine mijin ji-nie with a clear steel. Beside the toran the published sources name a second, calmer manner of his own, a shallow notare with a wide yakihaba, the nioi deep and ko-nie adhering well; it is the hand of his daisho and of several wakizashi, and on a daisho dated Kansei 7 (1795) the record notes that the long and short blades match well in a shallow notare. The published sources also report that in Edo he 「水心子正秀に学んだ」 (studied under Suishinshi Masahide), the leader of the shinshinto revival, so that his work joins the Osaka inheritance of Sukehiro to the new Edo schooling of his own day. He carved his own horimono, dragons, bonji and the vajra-hilted ken among them, and a wakizashi of the seventieth session records on its tang that the carving is by the same hand, which the NBTHK treats as raising its documentary value. Around the start of the Bunsei era he forged for a time in Osaka before returning to Edo. His distinction is best read against the Osaka source he admired. Where Sukehiro's toran is the originating model, Masashige's is recognizable by the suguha yakidashi that opens it, the pointed togari and arrow-nock yahazu mingled into its crests, and the order he keeps in the large gunome so that the pattern does not break. He stands within the Tegarayama house of Himeji, the younger brother of its third-generation Ujishige and the smith who carried that line's name into the daimyo service of Shirakawa; among the Tegarayama smiths the published sources hold him the most accomplished hand of the toran manner. His blades are further set apart by their inscriptions, which record not only the date but the place of forging at Surugadai in Buyo and, on occasion, the iron itself; one katana forged from Sekishu Dewa material is compared by the NBTHK to the practice of Katayama Munetsugu and valued as documentary evidence. Masashige is rated Jo-jo saku by Fujishiro, a highly skilled smith of the shinshinto period, and thirteen of his blades are held in the Juyo tier, which is the whole of his designation record; the swords are token of the kind a private collector may realistically encounter, surviving in long-held and largely unrecorded hands. His provenance is sparse but specific: one wakizashi was made to the order of Kosugi Tamenaga, a retainer of the Koga domain, and bears on its reverse an old proverb on the uses of long and short, beneath the owner's own inscription. A blade of his comes to market only from time to time, and a signed, dated example with his self-cut carvings, or one bearing the granted Shinmyo characters he kept for his best work, is the more notable when it appears. For a collector seeking the toran of the shinshinto revival rendered by a daimyo's own smith, Masashige is among the surest names, his deep nioi and bright, clear nioiguchi the steady mark of a hand the published sources call thoroughly skilled.

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